Episode Summary
In this short episode I give an update on how taking tiny steps is working for me.
Episode Transcript (Edited)
Hi and welcome to this episode of Hope, Help and Happiness.
Today is going to be a short episode because I wanted to follow up on what I talked about yesterday. Now, yesterday I talked about how I’ve found that starting to overcome my learned helplessness has been really helped by me starting with doing something really, really small. A tiny step is how I described it yesterday.
I mentioned yesterday that James Altucher in his book, Choose Yourself, identifies a daily routine across what he calls the four bodies – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. In his writing he also recognises when you’re overwhelmed, just trying to do one thing across each of those four areas might be too much and overwhelming.
To deal with that, his recommendation is what he calls his Simple Daily Routine, which is just starting with one thing in one of the areas.
I’ve been doing that for a few days now and this morning I took my tiny daily step again. All I am doing is getting up and stretching as well as some deep breathing. And I’m finding it’s working really well.
This episode is just about giving you an update on that.
Today I did more repetitions of my morning stretches than I did yesterday. But it’s not just about the repetitions. I’m finding I’m getting out of bed almost immediately to do it. Other bits of my routine have started to gel around that tiny step too. I’m getting up much sooner after waking (instead of ruminating), I’m having a shower after exercising, having breakfast and then getting ready for the day.
And all of a sudden I have a bit of structure starting to come at the beginning of my day that’s given me a degree of momentum to move forward.
So it’s early days yet and so I’m starting with just one thing. I’ve got huge challenges to overcome and huge problems to deal with that I’ve created for myself. But I can see now that just doing this one step at a time, even though it’s a tiny step, is the way forward.
I discovered that I also need to be realistic about the future. I fully expect to find myself sometimes not wanting to do that routine because I’ve experienced that in the past.
My insurance policy for that is I’ll just get up and do one very small repetition of only one of the exercises just to tick the box that I’ve made some effort. I know from experience that sometimes when I’ve done that and attempted a token gesture I’ve just got on done the whole routine. There are also times when I haven’t and as long as I don’t beat myself up I can be ok with that.
The trouble is, I tend to beat myself up…more of that in another episode I’m sure.
So whilst I know it’s not going to happen every single day, I’m planning and preparing if it does go wrong.
A short episode today, and I just wanted to share that this does work. It’s making a difference. I’m starting to feel more positive. I ‘m starting to feel I can take back control of the challenges I’m facing and take back control of myself so I can deal with them. It’s an encouraging start.
So until tomorrow.
